Super raise in Pocono Mountain makes fool of board

Have Pocono Mountain School District board members lost their pencil-pushing minds?

Have Pocono Mountain School District board members lost their pencil-pushing minds?

They awarded their newly hired superintendent a $20,000 bonus for what they called outstanding contributions last year. She had the good sense to reject it.

Is the board nuts? That's what they hired her for — outstanding performance. You don't pay somebody $150,000 a year for mediocrity. How many books, computers and special instruction could that bonus buy?

The board members took $20,000 out of the classroom and put it in administration.

The school board failed to alert the public it intended to vote on the bonus by leaving it off the published meeting agenda. It also held the vote for the end of the meeting, when fewer taxpayers remained in attendance.

Guess what, board members? You could have ostracized your superintendent. She would have been resented by a staff that lives in constant fear for their jobs and been reviled by taxpayers who foot the bill.

You almost turned her into an enemy of the state.

Why did you do it, board members? Was it arrogance? To feel good? Or just because you could? If you issued the bonus fearing the superintendent, Elizabeth Robison, might leave for another district, just say so. The public deserves your honesty.

What Pocono Mountain School board members try to do was effectively give the superintendent a $20,000, unbudgeted raise, without any public input. It side-stepped the budget process, which is designed to be transparent.

The board's taxpayer-funded indiscretion will resonate among residents struggling to make ends meet.

If nothing else, by announcing the bonus this week, the board displayed exquisitely insensitive timing for the 281 district employees who recently lost their jobs.

Now these former employees can reflect on their loss while trying to understand the district's selective generosity.

Was the bonus performance-based? That's the way it's done in the real, bureaucratic-less, bottom-line oriented world. You set quantifiable targets and pay a bonus when those targets are achieved. Does Robison have a bonus clause in her contract? What targets were set?

The public will no longer trust this board. Every future tax increase or cut in services will revive the bitter memory of this raise.

Here's a message to the board: Don't make decisions in private, as this one was apparently made. It's the public's money. And don't insult us by sticking it on the end of an unpublished agenda and calling it public disclosure.

Unfortunately, the public doesn't get to vote on the budget. But it does get to vote for those who do. That's your recourse, voters. Express yourselves.

In rejecting the bonus, Superintendent Robison showed us the same wisdom that propelled her success. Thank you for returning it to the children.